To answer the question, any technology that requires; good hearing, eye sight, hand to eye co-ordination at speed and an understanding of how the world really works.
Our phone rings, number withheld, I decide to answer - good move as it’s not Microsoft warning me of a melt down, but a computer message for my hospital appointment.
I’m deaf but hear a voice,
‘If you are - change of voice and tone -
Mr name, press 1. I take the phone from my ear, look at it at arm' length because of eyesight, locate 1 and press - immediately the voice starts long before the phone is at my ear, by then it’s saying,
‘press hash’. Which is? Where’s that? And so forth and so on.
It would make a wonderful TV sketch - shame Fawlty Towers is no longer on.
Aviva sends me an email, my car insurance needs renewing and they’re offering a new deal only £7 more than last year.
'Just Log On and you’ll save £20'.Rather than spend endless hours on comparison sites, I go to My Account - wonders of wonders, joy of joys - my request last year to remember my details has worked. There in glorious yellow are my username and password (as asterisks). Nothing to do but ‘Log On’.
Error message - either username or password are not correct.
I check my little black book, and enter the correct details.
Same again. Being deaf I use the On-line chat facility - thrilled that I can cope with that.
Shabreen, tells me to try again. The same, she suggests changing my password, I don’t want to change my password etc.,
there’s no other way Sir. (that's a truncated version)
OK - I’ll go elsewhere.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’ :twisted:
National Rail Enquiries, on-line. Frequently crashes.
‘Oops sorry we have a problem and we are currently trying to fix it’ says the screen, or something like that.
I complain, they can’t understand it, it’s working fine on our computers, well, of course it is, no doubt you have an IT department that spends hours of its time ensuring the computers continue running. Whilst I have an ancient mac …. though I do have access to a nice bunch of people - I bet National Rail have nothing like that.
‘Try deleting all cookies, or emptying the cache’. Why should I do that?. You’ve told me it’s your problem and you’re working on it. Trainline works fine, every single time.
But I’ve solved it. I get in the car, drive to the station and talk to a person. They are such lovely things - people - no really, especially to the old. (the ladies in the Post Office are the same) Patronising maybe, but hey, I get tickets, I get seats next to the luggage rack and with extra room. They do a special print out telling me what train to catch, where’s it going and so on. Bliss.
You will know when you’re past it davesoa, your family will say, ‘No Dad, we’ll drive.’
